Artillery: The radio soldier in enlisted is not the artillery he is a spotter or forward observer for the artillery. The term spotter means he must see the target that is being fired upon by the artillery. Once he is in position to observe the target then he calls the artillery battery on the radio and tells them where to fire. This means that the spotter could not stay behind in relative safety he had to be somewhat exposed so that he could see and direct the fire.
Mortars: Same concept but slightly different. The mortars in Enlisted are light mortars 50mm to 60mm. In WW2 the light mortar crew carried the gun and ammo with them. But once again in order to fire they needed to spot the target where their rounds would land. In WW2 the light mortar team did not carry radios with them and they spotted for themselves. So similar to the artillery spotter, light mortars could not stay back in a safe and secure location to fire the mortar. They had to be forward exposing themselves so that they could see where the rounds were landing.
Darkflow needs to model both of these systems realistically to reflect the way they were historically used
Well, the game nature of Enlisted means there are some compromises to be made, to improve playability.
If we are honest to ourselves, spotted enemies should only be visible if the spotter is within shouting disctance of oneself, as there was no personal battlefield radio back then…
Actually I like that idea. Give radioman some binoculars that allow him to place a marker (visible for him) and then artillery strike comes for that marker. +1 from me
I think your missing the point of my post … the current problems with artillery and mortar spam in the game can be addressed if they are modeled more realistically. Yes at the end of the day this is a game and some abstractions should be made but in this case they have abstracted artillery and mortars too much …
Your are correct when it comes to heavy mortars 80mm and larger. Those heavy mortars where placed in a battery behind the lines and used spotter/forward observer to direct fire.
As far as light mortars go you are incorrect. The light mortars as depicted in enlisted are 50mm to 60mm mortars. They did not have radios and so had to spot for themselves …
Removing engineers from the mortar squad wont fix the ammo issue, they will just park next to a ammo crate that is already on map and spam. if no ammo crate they will spawn a squad with an engineer build a crate and then spawn their mortars
The solution really is simple … just model them as they were used historically and they will be exposed to fire like every other squad.
He doesn’t need visual confirmation to pass on a map grid coordinate.
no, no not really. You just aim at a direction and set a distance, and fire away.
So what exactly is your “more realistic” fix? Forcing line of sight to the target? How exactly would that work? Prevent firing unless you aim at an enemy soldier directly? That would be extremely janky.
No not really … if that was all it required then the artillery battery wouldn’t need a spotter. They can read maps too. No the spotter is there to make sure that the rounds hit where they are supposed too.
A map can get you in the general area but it’s not accurate enough when you are talking about firing when their are friendlies in the area.
Without getting too technical the spotter might start his call for fire with a map coordinate. But then once a spotter round is delivered he directs it onto the target by radio.
No, as they do not know where the enemy is. The spotter is not actually required to see the target to pass on the grid coordinates. They can lie about seeing enemies there. If the spotter wants them dropped on coordinate X, that is where the artillery will fire, regardless of whether the spotter actually had eyes on coordinate X or not.
to determine if the spotter has LOS. to make it simple imagine the spotter has a sniper scope (binocs).
If he can see the center of the circle that he wants to fire into then the mission is fired. The point is he has to be somewhat exposed like a sniper in order to direct the fire.
Same situation for the light mortar team because they spot for themselves thus exposing themselves.
doing this along with removing any spawn protection should address the problem …
Sure the arty fires where the spotter tells them too … If he wants to do his job and most FO’s did thier job without lying then he doesn’t just give them an unspotted map coordinate as that would be very dangerous for his own troops.
No he observes the target passes the initial coordinate along to the battery. They fire a spotting round in that general area and the spotter directs it onto the target … That’s how it is realistically done …
In reality it takes and took a lot longer than is depicted in game so we can speed it up since most battles only take 15 to 20 mins.
So no need to do all the adjusting of rounds onto the target as long as the spotter can see it through his binocs then he’s good to go …
I have one question about teamplay in that matter.
What if I play with my friends and only I have a radio squad available. They have visual on the enemy and are marking the location for me. Why shouldn’t I have the ability to drop the artillery strike there because I have no direct visual on that area?
Making them only possible to fire after direct visual confirmation could make playing those classes more selfish.
*I know that I agreed that something like binoculars with putting markers could be a good idea, but now teamplay aspect came to my mind.
Essentially yes … and he cant mark the spot on the map unless he can physically see it from his vantage point.
Now for mortars this would be even more restrictive because they also have to be spotted as well but the light mortar teams in WW2 didn’t have radios … They traveled along with the infantry and spotted for themselves.
This would be more restrictive for the mortars than a radio spotter because you just can’t set a mortar up anywhere. There has to be a somewhat flat level base and it must be free of overhead cover.
All of this in addition to have to spot where your rounds are landing. Other wise you might fire on your own troops.
yes the current in game markers are an important tool because it is a game and they do represent various other forms of battlefield communication such as popping smoke and using hand signals.
But i think we can all agree that the current issue with arty and mortars being too OP needs to be addressed. So I would say that if a friend marks a spot on the map for arty or mortars and the spotter or the mortar team can reposition themselves to see that same spot through binoculars then yes than can fire at that target.
This means that they can’t just sit in a static location and spam … If an infantry team marks a possible location then they must relocate to see it thus again becoming more exposed.
And honestly this would make those classes more fun to play. Rather than sitting in one place spamming they would have to keep moving and repositioning.
